brand new cap and rotor catastrophic failure!

[Hyperballsmcgee]

while putting headers on my car I broke my old dizzy cap, so in replacing that I bought a new rotor as well. they are "BWD Select" I believe. drove GREAT for about 3 weeks, then I went out this morning and it just cranked and cranked. pulled plug wires to find no spark. pulled the cap to find a DESTROYED rotor and the cap has white chalky stuff all over it. what could've cause this? I have an ignition switch and starter button in the car, but I couldn't see why that would cause this.

 

[Oklacarcollecto]

Pictures tell a 1000 words so how about posting some up?

 

[Hyperballsmcgee]

pics

 

[Hyperballsmcgee]

Pictures tell a 1000 words so how about posting some up?

sorry, fighting with the computer to upload them, gotta do it from my phone.

 

[Hyperballsmcgee]

rotor

 

[Oklacarcollecto]

Kind of looks like you had the tongue bent to where it was running beside the distributor coil contact point which resulted in arching instead of a solid contact. There is also a black mark on the inside of the cap that is away from the contact point.

 

[66plyValiant]

sorry oklacarcollecto, I didn't see your post before I typed mine

bet the rotor tab got bent putting the cap on, seen that happen before

 

[Hyperballsmcgee]

that's what I figured happened, but being 18 years old and this being my first old v8 (had a inline 6 before) I thought it best to get some advice from fabo. thanks!

 

[teringer]

I think you didn't have the rotor bottomed out and it rode to high pushing the conductor down on the rotor . did the rotor fit tight? I have seen this before but not often.

 

[nm9stheham]

You probably know this but make sure the rotor button is properly indexed into the index slot in the rotor shaft. It won't go fully down if misindexed and cause all sorts of havoc (if you can even get the cap on...).

 

[TrailBeast]

Cap wasn't on straight.
Next time set it straight down on the distributor and try not to tilt it back and forth to line up the tab.